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What are the genuinely worst films of all time?
Inspired by the recent post about "The Last Photograph" by Zack Snyder being awful. It makes me wonder: what are some truly awful films?
I don't mean "so bad they're funny" like Plan 9 from Outer Space my beloved or Birdemic (still laugh at how the most emotion we got from the male lead was telling the female lead "you look fine" right before sex). I also don't mean "awful just because they're racist/offensive/etc." like Birth of a Nation, or propaganda films or films with agendas.
I want to know about truly awful films that are considered just plain bad.
This isn't by any means one of the worst of all time, but it did piss me off so badly after watching that I went into Plex to change the description to TERRIBLE FILM (I would have deleted it but I downloaded it for someone else).
Honey Don't!
The story is utterly nonsensical, and it's looking like Ethan Coen isn't really able to make a decent film without his brother (and vice versa, from what I've heard but I haven't seen any of Joel's solo projects).
Aubrey Plaza and Margaret Qualley are fine in it, it's the story that sucks. Even my gay ass couldn't find something redeemable, and I have watched some TRASH just for queer scenes.
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987) is garbage nonsense, unfortunately. It's based on an 80s toy, and it should be nostalgic for people of my demographic, but even when I tried to watch it almost 40 years ago I couldn't really get through it. It's not "so bad it's good" either, it's just terrible writing and utter nonsense.
Troll 2 (1990) is maybe worse. It makes less sense, has worse acting, and is meta-nonsensical, since it's not a sequel and doesn't feature any trolls. Some people do hold this to be "so bad it's good", but I find that pretty questionable; there are lots of schlocky B movies that I love, and this one is bad.
North (1994) is probably less bad, but it's one that hurts more, because it's made by a filmmaker that I love. Rob Reiner made some of my favourite movies, and there are things that I say and things that I believe because of the effect that his movies have had on my life. And he made North, which is definitely in the top 10 worst movies I have ever seen. I don't always agree with Ebert, but his review on North is spot on.
Battlefield Earth (2000) is L. Ron Hubbard Scientology apologia crap, but it's also poorly made. I haven't watched it in 20 years, but I remember feeling like the whole thing was dutch angles and cross wipes. The story was nonsense and the acting was worse; everything about this movie is garbage.
There are a few that I haven't seen, but that I know have a reputation for being absolutely terrible. Gigli, Catwoman, Shallow Hal, a number of things like Date Movie, Movie 43, Remember the Spartans. I can't really say that these are bad because I haven't seen them, but I think they're pretty universally looked down on.
They’re eating her and now they’re going to eat me! Oh my gooooddd!!!!
Eh, it’s difficult to sufficiently answer this because I feel like the worst movies in the world are just extremely bland and mediocre. I’d almost rather HATE something than have no feelings towards it.
With that said, some of the movies I’ve given the lowest ratings to on my Letterboxd include:
There’s honestly so many
I went to see this with a family member, then another dud (can't remember), then we went and saw Rise of Skywalker. After Rise he said "I really want to see [insert movie name] when it comes out this summer, I would appreciate it if you didn't come because I don't want it to suck". Haven't gone with him to the movies since.
There have only been two movies I've ever walked out of the theater and demanded my money back.
One was The Force Awakens, at a theater that had it cranked about 30db too high, to the point that the dialog was painfully loud and crackling the speakers. Left within 15 minutes after it was clear they weren't going to dial it down. Saw it later in anotger theater and it was fine, so confirmed this was just a shit theater.
The other though, that was Independence Day:Resurgence. Got 40 minutes in and noped out.
I've seen countless bad and mediocre movies, but none so painfully annoying as that one. This review says it all:
Moviefreak
In my opinion, the 00s "spoof" movies. I love good spoof movies, like the classics Hot Shots! and The Naked Gun, and the first Scary Movie was actually decent, but then it went completely off rails and stupidly unfunny with the likes of Extreme Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Not Another Teen Movie, Date Movie and all the Scary Movie sequels.